American Air cancels 1% of July flights as surge stretches staff

American Airlines Group Inc. has dropped about 1% of its scheduled daily flights in July after a faster-than-expected surge in summer travel has led to crew shortages.

The airline will cancel 950 flights during the first 13 days of July after it scrapped more than 400 flights over the weekend and into Monday. American cited poor weather conditions at its Miami and Chicago hubs, which exacerbated a shortfall in pilots. In some cases, delays caused by storms exhausted its group of reserve pilots.

The sudden jump in demand fueled by people tired of staying close to home has strained airlines’ ability to rebuild operations cut back amid the onset of the pandemic last year. Pilots who took leave and those who were switched to new types of planes have had to be retrained as flight demand has recovered to near-2019 levels.

The squeeze seems to be affecting American the most as of Monday. It accounted for 125 of the 142 canceled flights within, into or out of the U.S., according to tracking website FlightAware.

American and other airlines have had trouble matching their desire to offer flights with their ability to assemble crews, although it expects to complete training for furloughed pilots by the end of June. The airline said it dropped flights in markets that have other options for passengers and is working to make schedule changes in advance of travelers’ departure dates.

Air carriers have struggled to match the supply of aircraft and crews with soaring demand for air travel. Earlier this month, the number of daily U.S. air travelers rose above 2 million for the first time since the pandemic started, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

“We’re just seeing a rocket ship straight up to where we were prior to the pandemic domestically,” said Dennis Tajer, an American captain and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

American’s scheduling system, which has long been a sore point between the carrier and its pilots’ union, hasn’t kept up with the expanded schedule, he said.